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PiedAddict083

PiedAddict083

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So me and my gf rescued this ball python from a local pet store after some guy bought 2 snakes and a tank and just wanted the tank, then dropped them off at the store and left them. The male we rescued was abused by his previous owner (Not the one who bought the tank) and has a few scars near his tail and sadly the end of his tail has been bitten off by a rat, he basically threw in live food and didn't watch. We've had him for about a month or so now and we try feeding him whenever we feed one of our other snakes but he never takes anything, doesn't seem interested at all, doesn't even sniff it. We've tried frozen and live since we think live is what he was fed previously.

So does anyone have any idea why he might be so stingy about feeding? We're not sure about his exact weight but he's about the same size as one of our females who is around 750 grams.
 
He's probably terrified! He got his tail bit off, I don't really blame him. You could try feeding him smaller? Otherwise I'm not to sure on how to help.

Best of luck though, and good job on the rescue.:thumbsup:
 
There are any number of reasons that could be the cause of him not eating; ranging from improper conditions, to illness, to just not wanting what has been offered (or how it has been offered).
ALWAYS review your husbandry first - it doesn't matter how experienced you are, or how many snakes you have - make sure everything is ideal for that one. Then try a live mouse just after dark (leave the lights off...and if the snake is in a hide, remove the hide so it will see the mouse) - go ahead and "abuse" the snake by walking away for a half hour. If it doesn't take it, remove the mouse, replace the hide, and don't bother the snake again for at least a week. Try again. If it doesn't eat, assess it for illness.
 
I would say considering what he's been through, he's nervous. Maybe try offering a much smaller prey animal. I had an incident with one of my snakes where a fresh killed rodent wasn't quite dead and managed to revive and bite her. She wouldn't eat rats for weeks. I scaled back and offered her a hopper mouse and she took it without hesitation. After that, we just went up in size to mouse, large mouse, rat weanling, and eventually got back up to medium rats.

I hope he starts eating normally for you guys.
 
Not to discount any of the other suggestions, which I believe are great. However I had a rat shy girl 2 years ago that I could not get to eat for anything. She wouldn't eat live, she wouldn't eat pre-killed, frozen, flambéd or seasoned with a slight tartar sauce...


What I finally did out of total desperation is throw a handful (about 6) fuzzy rats in there. She ate them like popcorn. I began feeding her 6 of these weekly, then slowly increased the size. She's back on feed 2000% now. It was costly but....it is another shot if the other ideas don't work.

Another way I've tried is to put the snake higher then the prey....perched on top of a hide, or some other sort of superior position. It seems to make them feel safer when they can look down on their prey
 
I hope he does too. We feed all of our snakes large adult mice, which I consider pretty small. I don't know what size he was fed or anything like that but I'll have to try going to a smaller prey for him and see what happens.
 
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